Yesterday frost covered everything, but when the sunshine broke through the clouds and fog, soon this fir tree outside our front window was literally raining gallons of water upon itself--like millions of tears falling from the eyes of heartache.
There the tears were raining down--but upon itself, and that cold, hard frost was just melting into puddles of water that were watering the dry ground underneath this tree.
Its tears were literally watering itself and giving it life!
What a picture of what God can do through our tears!
What a comfort it is to remember that
"He washed my eyes with tears that I might see.
The broken heart I had was best for me.
He tore it all apart and looked inside.
He found it full of fear and foolish pride...
He washed my eyes with tears that I might see."
That's a song my sister Dorcas used to sing.
At the breakfast table this morning, my children wondered what happened to my eye. My eyelid was quite purple!
All I could remember was that last night while falling asleep, my eye had been bothering me and I was rubbing and rubbing it, till I told myself to stop as it was only getting worse. I must have rubbed too much and broken a blood vessel. It looked like I put on eye shadow, the children said!
So I put a little geranium oil on my eyelid before leaving for church, as that is supposed to be good to heal bruises, but that made my eye feel sticky, and my eye watered a lot today.
Which made me think of tears!
And hard stories that I've listened to recently.
I don't have all the answers.
Sometimes it's hard to focus on my work, teaching, and housework, because my heart is hurting for people I love. But that is when I am thankful for the redemptive work of working with my hands in the kitchen.
I work out the heartache by peeling carrots and cutting up potatoes and pulling frozen mulberries and rhubarb out of the freezer.
Making meals and doing laundry and housework for the ones we love is literally redemptive.
There the tears were raining down--but upon itself, and that cold, hard frost was just melting into puddles of water that were watering the dry ground underneath this tree.
Its tears were literally watering itself and giving it life!
What a comfort it is to remember that
"He washed my eyes with tears that I might see.
The broken heart I had was best for me.
He tore it all apart and looked inside.
He found it full of fear and foolish pride...
He washed my eyes with tears that I might see."
That's a song my sister Dorcas used to sing.
At the breakfast table this morning, my children wondered what happened to my eye. My eyelid was quite purple!
All I could remember was that last night while falling asleep, my eye had been bothering me and I was rubbing and rubbing it, till I told myself to stop as it was only getting worse. I must have rubbed too much and broken a blood vessel. It looked like I put on eye shadow, the children said!
So I put a little geranium oil on my eyelid before leaving for church, as that is supposed to be good to heal bruises, but that made my eye feel sticky, and my eye watered a lot today.
Which made me think of tears!
I don't have all the answers.
Sometimes it's hard to focus on my work, teaching, and housework, because my heart is hurting for people I love. But that is when I am thankful for the redemptive work of working with my hands in the kitchen.
I work out the heartache by peeling carrots and cutting up potatoes and pulling frozen mulberries and rhubarb out of the freezer.
I can't reach across the miles to others I love to serve them a bowl of hot soup or hot tea or other comfort food, but I can pray for them as I work in my kitchen to make food for my own family
who needs good meals every day, too!
As we go about our daily work, turning our burdens over to the Lord, not lazily but proactively and very specifically, we find that He gives us strength as our day--even right in the middle of heartache.
A rice dish made with delightful herbs and lamb meat the girls' employer sent home from the restaurant.
Fruit slices for on top of pancakes!
Fruit slices and syrup, like the mercies that the Lord drizzles upon us, new every morning.
Yes, right in the middle of perhaps the saddest chapter in the Bible, Lamentations 3, we read one of the most hopeful and cheering promises we've ever read:
"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning!
Great is Thy faithfulness!"
He is faithful, even when we aren't.
His faithfulness is great, even when our mornings leave us with no appetite, and all we want for lunch is some hot soup.
His Word holds out hope to us through His promises, like this beautiful bouquet of roses in the evening light.
And so we go about our work each day,
rejoicing that we have a merciful High Priest Who is touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
Trusting that He will work all things for good to those who love Him.
Remembering that with Christ there is hope and plentiful redemption.
And we can still enjoy a beautiful pitcher of flowers, like this one at the Lavery's home in South Dakota where we stopped to say hello on our way through.
And right in the middle of the heartache, we can experience joy, the kind of joy that the world does not understand because the world doesn't know the Lord.
"Today," this sweet plaque at Laverys said, "I Choose Joy!"
Lord, You said in Your Word that you put our tears into Your bottle.
Please return those tears to us as precious jewels,
turned supernaturally into the life-giving treasures of an abundant life!
